


Orange You Glad (I Love You)

by jamesiee



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, NHL Player Derek "Nursey" Nurse, NHL Player William "Dex" Poindexter, Soft Hockey Boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-12 23:31:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13557903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamesiee/pseuds/jamesiee
Summary: Derek hates the Flyers.Capital H, Hates. Hates their stupid orange jerseys, hates their fans, their apparent distaste for wearing fake teeth, their ugly style of play, the gingers they pick up like it’s going out of style, and their fucking logo. Everything. He hates them.Or, Derek plays in the NHL and goes home with his boyfriend.





	Orange You Glad (I Love You)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nextweekforsure](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nextweekforsure/gifts).



> so, "legit anything. i love the boy." turned into a hockey game, plus fluff? i hope you enjoy!!! ^^
> 
> any remaining mistakes are mine but shoutout to my beta who keeps letting me drag her into this fandom, ilysm <3 
> 
> CW: there's a hockey fight, but derek isn't involved, and it's not, like really described, but punches are landed . rated for swearing
> 
> main pairing: nursey/dex

Derek Hates the Flyers.

Capital H, Hates. Hates their stupid orange jerseys, hates their fans, their apparent distaste for wearing fake teeth, their ugly style of play, the gingers they pick up like it’s going out of style, and their fucking logo. Everything. He Hates them.

It’s the third period and they’re tied at two goals each. Derek has two points; he opened the scoring and assisted on Armie’s absolutely filthy toe drag that tied the game. Derek’s pinching up, at the top of the face-off circle on the Flyer’s goalie’s glove side—confident that Kegger’ll hold their blue line—and shouting for the puck that Reimer is digging out of the corner. Reimer gets slammed into the boards—no call against the Philly d-man, of fucking course—and the puck squirts out, catching a bad bounce before Derek can get to it, and it’s sent down the ice to the Ranger’s zone. Greeny skates out of his net to hold onto it and Derek follows Kegger to to the bench for the shift change.

The second PP unit brings the puck back into Philly’s zone, skating circles around the orange players. Their defense is at least good enough to cut down on shot angles so the penalty clock runs out. Poindexter steps onto the ice and the Flyers are back to full strength. Derek chews angrily on his mouth guard.

“Nurse, Kegley, go!”

Derek jumps over the boards, maybe a touch too soon, but the refs are half blind tonight anyways, slow to blow their whistles on anything. He crosses the ice, muscling the Flyer off the puck before he can get any further into the Ranger’s zone.

“Fucking-”

Derek twists and gets the his stick on the puck, knocking it to Kegger who gets it up to Patty. It’s an ugly play, Patty has to double back on himself to get the puck, but it’s on his tape and he’s just crossed out of the neutral zone when a Philly player comes out of nowhere, dropping his shoulder and hitting Patty hard. Kegger keeps his momentum from the give-and-go play and barrels into the Flyer, shouting in Norwegian the whole time. His gloves hit the ice so he can get a grip the ugly orange sweater, even as Patty gets back to his feet. The crowd cheers.

Derek watches the fight, edging forward slightly when it looks like there are more orange sweaters than blue around it. He’s not surprised when a Philly player comes in and puts his arm around Derek’s shoulder, effectively pairing them off.

“Fucking dirty play,” Derek says.

Poindexter grins behind his visor. “Clean hit.”

“For once.”

Poindexter snorts, and they watch Kegger land another punch. He takes one too, but shakes it off, adjusting his hold on the orange collar.

“Wanna go?” Poindexter asks mildly. The Flyer loses his balance and the ref jumps in as Kegger falls on top of him and they’re both sent to the box.

“In your fucking dreams Poindexter.”

“Usually.”

Derek doesn’t look at Poindexter, doesn’t want to see his smug face, instead shrugs his arm off and shoves him away. He skates forward to collect Kegger’s helmet and gloves and deliver them to the box.

“I’m game whenever you are,” Poindexter calls, doing the same for his teammate.

“I fucking hate you!” Derek replies.

“Hey, family show,” the linesman says. Derek rolls his eyes so hard that he thinks he gives himself an eye strain. He doesn’t miss the kiss Poindexter sends him when they’re lining up for the face-off though.

The rest of the period is just as chippy and neither team plays at full strength again, someone always cycling into the box. Derek can practically hear Coach’s molars grinding together when Kegger ends up there again. Asshole never keeps his stick down when he gets excited, even though they talked about not taking dumb penalties at morning skate. Derek wants to yell at Kegger too, but the puck is dropped and so Derek focuses.

Armie wins the draw, flicking the puck over to Derek. An orange sweater comes in, but Derek gets around him, throwing his shoulders like he’s going to cut in before cutting out and bouncing the puck off the the boards to where Patty’s lost his man. Forehand, backhand, forehand again and the post rings out over the crowd’s boos as Patty goes bardown.

Derek follows his teammates through the fistbump line, accepts the ass tap from Greeny before lining up again for the final face-off. Philly wins that one, but there’s only three seconds left on the clock and they can’t do anything before the final buzzer sounds.

4-3 Rangers.

Derek does media as fast as he can after the game, pointedly ignoring PR-Andrew’s look of disapproval as he starts two answers in a row with, “Yeah no, boys played hard and got the puck deep.” He’s on a tight schedule, and doesn’t feel too bad when the interviewer wraps up quickly and moves over to Patty’s stall so Derek’s able to run to the showers.

He showers fast, getting off as much hockey stench as he can with the shitty locker room soap, and is the first out, even though he wasn’t the first in. He dries quickly too, still damp while he struggles back into his game day suit.

“Hot date Nurse?” Armie asks, doing nothing to help when Derek almost brains himself on the bench trying to get his dress pants up.

“Philly gets him hot and bothered,” Greg chirps on his way to the shower. Everyone at their stall jeers. Derek flicks his towel in Greg’s direction before balling it up to throw at the laundry bin. He misses and the locker room gets louder.

“You can all eat my entire ass,” Derek says, picking up the towel. It gets in the bin this time.

“I dunno, I’ve already been in a fight tonight,” Keggar says, laughing.

Derek rolls his eyes. “One time, you guys fought one time.”

“For your honour,” someone from the showers shouts.

“Nurse doesn’t have honour,” Patty calls back.

“I’m requesting a trade.” Derek shoulders his backpack, thinking back fondly on the days Patty was a shy rookie. “See you assholes later.”

Derek only gets lost once on his way up to the players’ parking lot, a new personal record. The Wells Fargo Center is a maze, a jumble of literally every professional sports team Philadelphia has to offer, but a nice janitor points him in the right direction with a wry grin, like he knows Derek has no business being anywhere near the basketball court.

There’s a couple cars left in the lot when Derek pushes open the doors, despite the late time. He makes a beeline for the ugly orange hummer idling at the curb with its headlights on.

Unfortunately, William Poindexter is good at enough at hockey to justify his atrocious taste in vehicles.

“Took you long enough,” Dex says as Derek slides into the passenger seat. His hair is still wet from his post game shower, his cheeks flushed, and his lip fat from Kegger’s high stick. At least he doesn’t have a broken nose this time.

“Hey, third star interviews, be nice.” Derek leans across the console (and then keeps leaning, the hummer is so huge and so ugly) to press a kiss to Dex’s cheek. Dex grumbles, but turns so he catches Derek’s lips with his own, softer than he normally is the first time they see each other after weeks apart. Derek is gentle too, careful not to resplit Dex’s lip.

“Good game,” Dex says, when they pull back. He looks annoyed as he says it, but Derek recognizes it as his default expression.

“You too,” Derek replies, actually peaking Dex on the cheek when he tuts and turns his head to face forward again. “I’m mad that your goal messed up my plus-minus though.” He settles back in his seat and does up his seat belt so the bell stops yelling.

Dex smirks slightly, because he’s a hockey player and competitive as fuck, and puts the hummer into drive to pull out of the parking lot, foregoing a complete stop at the stop sign. Even before he started driving a goddamn tank, traffic rules have never been high on his list of priorities. “Fight me.”

“You know, one day I might and then what?” Derek asks, reaching to thread his fingers with Dex’s. Dex has been driving one-handed for as long as Derek’s known him, but he never really appreciated it until they started dating and Derek could do this.

“Kegger would try to fight me again,” Dex says after a minute. Derek snorts and leans forward to flip through Dex’s presets.

It’s quiet in the truck after Derek settles on a weird indie-rock station, though it’s not uncomfortable. Dex hums under his breath as he drives, so quietly that Derek’s not even sure he knows he’s doing it, tapping his thumb slightly off beat on the back of Derek’s hand. Derek soaks it up, filing it away as another of Dex’s every day mannerisms that Derek isn’t around every day to appreciate.

Dex pulls into his parking spot and kills the engine before Derek has too much time to dwell on that thought. Dex takes Derek’s hand again once they both jump down from the hummer, and leads the way up to his apartment, though Derek’s never gotten lost on his way there. He was there in the kitchen when Dex signed the lease and finally spent some of the money from his entry level contract on something for himself that wasn’t ugly and orange.

Inside the apartment, Derek kicks his shoes off, adding to the mess by the front door that gives away the struggle Dex had deciding on a pair of shoes for the game. Dex pointedly doesn’t look down, stepping over it to go to the kitchen. Derek leaves the low hanging chirp; it’s too easy to make Dex flustered over the way he matches his shoes to his belts.

Derek can hear the fridge open and Dex bang a pan around and hopes there might be leftovers of the chicken parm that was on Dex’s snapchat earlier. Derek skips the kitchen though and goes to the bedroom, throwing his backpack down beside the chair in the corner. He pauses, considering the ugly pattern that doesn’t match the rest of the dark wood in the room. He doesn’t recognize it so it must be new and there’s another thing that stings when he thinks too hard, so instead Derek strips quickly, throwing his dress clothes over the chair so he can’t see it. He steals the pair of sweats and long sleeve shirt on the bed.

“Those are mine,” Dex says, looking up from moving something around on the pan when Derek’s back out in the kitchen.

“Yep.” Derek hooks his chin over Dex’s shoulder to see a red sauce bubbling away. There’s a giant tupperware of pasta reheating in the microwave. “You got a new chair.”

“Yep. Somewhere for you to throw your shit that’s not the floor.” Dex passes Derek the wooden spoon he’d been using. “Watch this for a sec?” Dex disappears down the hallway. He’s is gone maybe half a minute, coming back in the boxers and hoodie that were in Derek’s bag, and catches Derek trying to wipe up the red sauce he accidentally flung onto the counter.

“Dude,” Dex says, taking the spoon back. He lightly shoves Derek out of the way and stirs way more vigorously than Derek had been, yet he manages to keeps everything in the pan. Derek sighs and gets a wet cloth before the sauce sets into the granite countertops. He’s already made that mistake.

They eat in front of the TV, Sportsnet turned to a west coast baseball game. Derek doesn’t follow—and he’s pretty sure Dex doesn’t either—but it’s nice to sit shoulder to shoulder to enjoy a meal together. They don’t get much of that during their seasons.

It’s hard sometimes, long distance. When everything goes to plan, their seasons are long and the four times they play each other during the regular season barely puts a dent into the melancholy of crawling into a cold bed alone when most of his teammates have partners to come home to. Unlimited texting and minutes in North America helps, and Philly’s only an hour or so drive from New York—less if you’re desperate after your boyfriend takes a bad hit against the Kings and won’t pick up his phone because he’s on concussion watch—but there are days, weeks even when it’s just… hard not seeing each other.

Still.

Derek’s in the NHL, living a dream he didn’t know he could have until the offer was on the table and suddenly he was playing hockey for an Original Six team, regularly playing with and defending against the names on the sweaters he wore as a kid. There are instagram posts and tweets of young kids who look like him putting on hockey skates because they watch him do it, and Derek doesn't know enough words in any language to say how much that mean to him. He’s got a lease on a little apartment that’s above his favourite coffee shop, an English cohort that he thinks has adopted him and includes him in their discussions sometimes, plus he’s near enough to his parents’ place that he goes for weekly dinners when he’s in town. Derek wouldn’t give any of that up, and he knows Dex respects him enough, and is off living his own dream in orange, to not expect him to.

It’s so much easier to be proud of each other, rather than resenting the other for the distance their jobs have put between them.

So that’s what they do, even when it's hard.

The dishes are rinsed and go into the dishwasher when they’re finished and their usual fight for the bathroom sink is half hearted at best, both tired from playing over 20 minutes tonight. Dex pulls down the fancy comforter he insists he needs even though it always ends up on the floor and Derek dives face first into the pillows, wrapping his arms around the one that smells most like Dex’s shampoo. He groans happily when he feels the bed dip. Dex presses a kiss to Derek’s shoulder as he wiggles in, dragging the good blankets up with him.

“Loser’s the big spoon,” Derek reminds him. It’s been a tradition of theirs since they started playing on different teams and NHL games took too much out of them to do more than cuddling after their teams played.

Dex tuts, but sticks one arm under Derek’s pillow and wraps his other around Derek, fingers slipping under his shirt and rubbing along Derek’s stomach. Almost without trying, he finds a bruise. Derek can’t help the wince that slips out.

“Sorry,” Dex mumbles, gentling his touch. His fingers are cool against Derek’s skin. “That from Martin’s shot?”

“Or Charbonneau's hit.” Hits and shots and checks all blend together when the adrenaline is rushing through your system.

“Should put heat on it Nurse.” Dex rolls out of bed.

“Noooo,” Derek groans. He knows it’s all in his head, but the bed isn’t as comfortable without Dex beside him. He starfishes onto his back, purposefully rolling onto Dex’s side of the bed, and lifting his head to glare when he hears Dex come back with a warm rice heating pad. It’s Flyer’s orange.

“I hate you,” Derek says, but he shifts so Dex can slip back in and Derek can use his chest as a pillow. He groans in relief when he gets the heating pad on his stomach, not realizing how much the bruises hurt until there’s something there to dull the ache. He throws an arm around Dex, mindful of any pain Dex might have but won’t admit to even if the marks are stark against his pale skin, and rubs his face against Dex’s shirt because he likes the noise and how it makes Dex squirm. “I don’t hate you.”

“I know babe,” Dex says.

“I hate the Flyers though.”

Dex huffs out a laugh. “I know babe.”

“You guys are so dirty.”

“We are not.”

“Dude.” Derek tilts his head and squints at Dex, who rolls his eyes and stretches for his phone.

“What time should I set an alarm?” Dex asks, effectively admitting Derek is right without admitting to it.

Derek loves him so much, it’s stupid. “Uhh, you still good to drive?”

“Yeah, bye week. I packed all my shit before the game.”

“I can’t believe you’re coming to New York instead of going somewhere warm and sunny to burn,” Derek tuts, snuggling in deeper.

“Well, what are you doing for yours?”

Derek is following Dex back to Philly when the Rangers are off next week. “Shut up.” He turns and bites lightly at Dex’s pec through his shirt. “9ish? Practice at 11:30.”

“I’ll set it for 8.” He jostles Derek a little as he puts his phone back on the nightstand. “G’night, I love you,” Dex says. It’s exactly what he’s sent every night before going to bed, no matter what timezone he’s in and yet three years later, it still makes Derek’s toes curl to hear it spoken out loud.

“Love you too Dexy,” Derek replies. He leans up to get a good night kiss, pinching Dex in the side when he tries to slip some tongue in.

It’s nowhere near where Derek expected to be after they each signed free agent contracts out of Samwell; slightly to the right of the trainwreck he thought starting something with your d-man-turned-NHL-rival would be; and leagues ahead of where their friends had bet on their relationship ending up.

Dex shifts, turning so his breath puffs out on Derek’s temple, and lightly taps out whatever beat is in his head on Derek’s bare arm as he settles in to sleep.

It’s okay though.

This is exactly where Derek wants to be.


End file.
